The Scientific Steering Committee met for its third meeting in Paris on 11-12 December 2012 to review the progress on the project and carry out the planning for the next year.  It was concluded that, for the most part, the project is on schedule, having concluded most of the deliverables of the first 11 months on schedule.  

One of the major topics was the agenda of the Umbrella Workshop which is to be organized in Barcelona, followed by the General Assembly meeting between 21-25 January 2013 in Barcelona.  It was agreed that the objective of the Umbrella Workshop will be to pool together all major findings of the first year and identify knowledge gaps in the different work packages.  The Umbrella Workshop will gather the information at the basin and sub-basin level in order to better prioritise and conclude on the sampling strategies.  

Numerous decisions were made on the implementation of the project, such as the Summer Schools and Training Visit Schemes to be organised in 2013.  Also, the Steering Committee agreed that PERSEUS will sponsor an Investigate Journalism Award on Marine Environmental Research in cooperation with the European Union Science Journalism Association.  This award aims to engage the support of scientific media in disseminating scientific findings in an easy-to-understand way.  

The next meeting of the Steering Committee was agreed to take place on 22-23 May 2013 in Malta, immediately following the European Maritime Day taking place on 21-22 May 2013.

The meeting concluded with the next steps to be taken in view of upcoming General Assembly Meeting, on 22-23 January 2013, to be held at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) premises, in Barcelona.